2000 AD

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Right, so I've read a lot of collections of 2000 AD strips. Read me a bunch of Judge Dredd and loved it. Nearly died with joy while reading Slaine: The Horned God, laughed my ass off while reading the lone Devlin Waugh GN. I've seen the odd Future Shock. I've had a real hoot with 2000 AD collections.

Recently, I've been in the mood for some fun horror/sci fi stuff so I thought I'd get into the 2000 AD weekly progs. How I'll obtain them, never you mind. But I can get hold of any of the progs - 1 to the present. But there's so much of it that I'm wondering if you guys could help me out with regards to a good point to jump in. Keep in mind that I've never followed any of the series from beginning to end. I've only read the above-mentioned collections. Is there a good point for me to get onboard? Are there any especially famous issues with some really great standalone stories? I really cannot bring myself to start from the very beginning and slog my way through their entire three decade history, a good proportion of which is - no doubt - crappy. I just want to be entertained with some awesome horror/sf/fantasy stories. Doesnt necessarily have to be excessively deep either.

Some company just released all of Alan Moore's short stories from 2000 A.D. in Trade form. I love some of Moore's "Future Shock" stories!

DC released Halo Jones and Skizz in Trades. I couldn't get in to Halo Jones, too sci-fi for my tastes, but might be what you're looking for. Skizz is great fun! Alan Moore rips off E.T.! :D

Moore also wrote the D.R. & Quinch tales. Those are ok, but Rogan loves them. Something about patterning his whole life on D.R. & Quinch when his parents mistakenly allowed him to read something from the West in his fomative youth....

If you really need issue numbers, with some digging I can give you issue numbers on most of these stories. It'll take time though.

Some company just released all of Alan Moore's short stories from 2000 A.D. in Trade form. I love some of Moore's "Future Shock" stories!

DC released Halo Jones and Skizz in Trades. I couldn't get in to Halo Jones, too sci-fi for my tastes, but might be what you're looking for. Skizz is great fun! Alan Moore rips off E.T.! :D

Moore also wrote the D.R. & Quinch tales. Those are ok, but Rogan loves them. Something about patterning his whole life on D.R. & Quinch when his parents mistakenly allowed him to read something from the West in his fomative youth....

If you really need issue numbers, with some digging I can give you issue numbers on most of these stories. It'll take time though.

which lists the episodes he appeared in along with the awesome Torquemada - Be Pure, Be Vigilant, Behave!

You can read the his first main appearance in a story (Terror Tube - inspired by The Jam song Down in the Tube Station) online at the 2000AD site (you have to register though).

The first episodes as an ongoing character were from 222-233. Absolutely fantastic - I'm going to have to great the trades after looking all this up again ( My Dad threw away all my boxes of 2000AD that I'd left in the loft from #1 to somewhere in the 700's :icon_cry: )

There's been some brilliant work published in 2000AD, but no era of the magazine which I've ever attempted to immerse myself in (and I've tried a few - an ex-flatmate had a near-complete collection going back to about 1982) has been above "patchy". Go for the trades, seek out specific issues if there's an uncollected story you're interested in (Grant Morrison's Zenith would be a good one to look out for, as I don't believe that's ever been traded in its entirety), but be prepared for a lot of shitty filler bulking out the worthwhile stories.

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In the 80s....He used to write stories...for 2000 A.D....back in the 80s....It wore him out....It wore him out....

Around the # 530s, in that area.

He probably wrote about 10 short stories, mostly "Future Shocks" I think.

Around '87 I think, and they were all Future Shocks. The one I remember was a sort of dry run for Calliope.

Don't buy any of the progs that have been put out in the last ten years. They're largely shit.

Actually there was an issue from eight years ago (I think) that has one of those stupid X Files rip offs they were doing instead of Future Shocks at the time scripted by me. So there's at least one good prog in the last ten years...

Mark, I think all but the last book of Zenith was collected, but the bind ups are now worth more than the comics the serial first appeared in due to them being taken out of print under a cloud. It's the same situation as those episodes of the Cursed Earth that they can't reprint, I think.

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Actually there was an issue from eight years ago (I think) that has one of those stupid X Files rip offs they were doing instead of Future Shocks at the time scripted by me. So there's at least one good prog in the last ten years...

Vector 13? Seriously? SCAN SCAN SCAN!

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I guess my 2000 ad love was the fact that it was the only thing remotely interesting in comic form, when I was a kid. New Zealand had alsorts of restrictive importing tarrifs, ESPECIALLY from the USA, because of the exchange rate. Comics DID exist, but the ones that were popular ( in the US especially ) didn't seem to make it here. We got Donald Duck, and Mickey Mouse, some few superhero ones, but nothing like the numbers of titles that I can see now, existed. Plus they were extremely expensive compared to the English comics.

An my mum always liked buck rogers, flash gorden etc, so she brought us this comic, without us even knowing about it. In fact, she used to READ it quite often, in the beginning.

So some people might have a low opinion of the quality of the stories, but they are maybe missing the context of the times that they came from?.

I mean, compared to the later works, early Spiderman, Fantastic 4, Superman, Batman, etc, are pretty fucking awful shit, but at the TIME, they were something wonderful. And maybe people should read some of it, not expecting wonders, but the value that was in it then in their mind.

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Actually there was an issue from eight years ago (I think) that has one of those stupid X Files rip offs they were doing instead of Future Shocks at the time scripted by me. So there's at least one good prog in the last ten years...

Vector 13? Seriously? SCAN SCAN SCAN!

Yep, Vector 13. (All of the other X Files rip off series was by Dan Abnett, iirc.)

I do have it on another computer so I might if I can find somewhere to host it.

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Bought a solitary issue out of morbid curiosity not so long ago. Cant say I enjoyed but then again I cant quite say that was due to the quality of what was on offer. Rather the serial format meant that I only read part 2 of one story, part 5 of another etc. Not easy to get into I suppose..

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Hm. THanks for the suggestions, everyone. Mark's comments have depressed me since my love for all the collections led me to believe that 2000 AD is awesomeness.

There are times when it has been (I remember the early 80s as being a very purple patch, for a start), Mark's being overly harsh by saying that there's often one or two decent stories and the rest of it crap: as James says that's a comparatively recent development and the crap/good stuff ratio was once the opposite of that. A lot of the time there'd be three or four fine stories and just one or two ropey ones.

(And there's still an awful lot of good stuff that has never been collected, besides those mentioned above, I'd like to see more of the Strontum Dog, Nemesis and Slaine strips put out as bind ups, along with everything they can find that Kevin O'Neill or Glen Fabry illustrated...)

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No, they're earlier than that - mainly 93-94, a couple from 87/89 with some Complete Judge Dredds, Vendetta in Gotham, some Best ofs, some of th Megazine from the same time, the afore-mentioned Meltdowns and quite a lot of Overkills (about half the box.)